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Mixed Feelings About How I Want my Life to Be Right Now
So I am a 21 year old woman and have been with my partner for a little over three years now. Sometimes it feels like he loves me more than I do for him. Of course I love him very much, but these days, it seems uneven. I feel like I am being a bad partner because of this.
He knows in his mind that he one day wants to marry me. However, I am not too sure these days.
One part of me wants to stay with him. On the other hand, on-and-off for the past few months, I have been feeling like I want to go out and just casually hook up with people and just be single for a while. I feel as though I would still be hurt to leave my partner, but it sounds like something I would enjoy as well.
I really care about my partner and he is truly a blessing, but I can't help but have these other feelings.
Any advice?
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Now this is just a guess based on how I interpret what you wrote and is based on two statements, one being it would be painful to ever leave him and the other "feeling like I want to go out and just casually hook up with people".
I assume then he treats you well and that he would be the perfect marriage partner. And so I would like to mention something called 'new relationship energy'. This is that extra heightened feeling and or ability to sense, that a person feels when something is new to them in their life but after some time has passed, tho they still like it, it doesnt have the same effect to draw your attention and elicit the same intensity of feelings as it did in the beginning. Think back to begging for a certain toy as a child and every ad on TV, you were very excited, a trip to the store and you were in the toy isle staring at or trying to play with the toy you wanted. Then once you got it, for Christmas or a birthday, You found it so exciting and played with it every day, how you related to this toy was one of looking forward to as it occupied your attention fully and there was sooo much you could learn to do and experience with it. Once you'd had it a while and done everything you could with that toy and could maybe even draw it in detail with your eyes blindfoled,as you knew it that well, it lost it's appeal, it didn't elicit the same response in you as it did in the beginning, same thing with a new pet, whatever, whether a living creature or inanimate object.
The intenseness of this feeling is like a drug to some people. Once it wears off, they want to feel it again and you can't not with the one person or object. The only way to feel it again is with a new person or thing. And that might be what is sparking your feeling of wanting to hook up with others.
Now, on the flip side of the coin, there can be two people who are both riding the 'high' of this new relationship energy thinking that they have the best sexual energy when in truth they are a mismatch and just couldn't tell until the special energy wore off. I am sensing this isn't the case for you. For most people, it can last up to 6 mos. and I suppose it can for longer with others. I was a mismatch from the beginning and abused on top of it with 1st husband so I was careful choosing my 2nd. And actually experienced love and romance for real the 1st time with my 2nd husband. After a 30 yr marriage of no real love, this was indeed like a strong drug to my system and it took a full 3 yrs I'd have to estimate before this new relationship energy wore off. Did the level of excitement I felt with him take a dive? Yes. Did I still love him? Yes. Did he treat me like a Queen? Yes. So there was no reason to leave him or search for someone on the side and risk losing him. Our 6 year anniversary will be here in a few months and I can say that pushing through those feelings of it not feeling so exciting was a great experience in the end. On the average, about every 6 months, we both experienced something new in our lovemaking or learned something new about each other that satisfied in some way that desire for the level of excitement I had in the beginning...still not the same but very good. It is when I allowed myself to learn to enjoy what I had with him now that my love grew even greater, to the point we can't stand too long being apart, enjoy each others company and if either of us lost the other, the last one would have a hard time with going on, rather wanting to give up and die.
Unless you guys were a mismatch, which is something that shows itself long before if you aren't, I would urge you to find new things to do together, even if its taking an evening class to both learn to do Thai cooking or ball room dancing. Having something new to do together may help you come back to a level of having that special heightened feeling when with him. Its not magic so it doesn't come back at once or hit you in the face in an instant like the attraction to a new person, but it grows slowly. If you're watching for it, you'll see it and all your worries will be laid to rest.
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